North Hertfordshire College is pleased to announce that Level 2 chefs Kajus, Freddie, and Luke recently brought home awards from the national finals of Zest Quest Asia!
The competition is designed to celebrate Asian cuisine, with teams of student chefs from across the country creating menus which reflect the diversity of flavours and cooking techniques. It’s also a great opportunity for students to build their confidence around their cooking abilities, with the competition involving presenting their menu to established chefs and hospitality sector figures as well as cooking under pressure – no mean feat!
Zest Quest Asia is a popular staple of NHC’s Hospitality & Catering department’s calendar with students regularly entering the competition. Each year, students receive positive feedback for their dishes and enjoy the buzz of competing against other teams, and this year was no exception.
Kajus Serovas, Level 2 Catering student at North Hertfordshire College and part of the team, said: “Zest Quest Asia was such an amazing experience for me. It was eye opening and so surreal to be there. I had a wonderful time, I met some amazing people, and I got to present our menu and our food to the judges. My team and I made some amazing memories that we will never forget, and hopefully we can come back next year for the finals.”
The team walked away with two awards, including Best Use of Rice (for the second year running) and Best Menu Presentation, placing third overall in the tally. Their prize package includes opportunities to visit the Tilda Rice mill for a day, a meal at a restaurant, plus a week-long course at the Tokyo College of Sushi and Washoku in London – all fantastic experiences which will help inspire our student chefs to create further amazing dishes.
The experience has left our chefs feeling motivated to come back even stronger when the competition returns next year. Freddie McCreath, who was also part of the NHC team, commented: “Zest Quest Asia has been by far the biggest competition of my life. Some of the awards on offer were absolutely huge, and to win some of them is absolutely massive. I have enjoyed it so much that I want to come back next year to try and win the whole thing.”
Fellow teammate Luke Bradley told us: “I loved being part of such an amazing competition, not only competing by meeting great people too. It’s been so inspiring and makes me want to come back again next year. It was great to see all the work other colleges have been putting in and seeing the end result for them. I’m really proud of how we worked together as a team and the awards we achieved.”
Congratulations again to the student chefs!
If you fancy developing your own catering skills, be sure to check out North Hertfordshire College’s Hospitality & Catering courses! With NHC, you can stay close to home and build your skills through competition experiences, helping you go far in your future career.